The Romantic Scottish Ballads: Their Epoch and Authorship Part 4

'Oh, have ye tint at tournament Your sword, or yet your spear?

Or mourn ye for the southern la.s.s, Whom ye may not win near?'

'I have not tint at tournament My sword, nor yet my spear; But sair I mourn for my true love, Wi' mony a bitter tear.

'But weel's me on you, my gay gos-hawk, Ye can both speak and flie; Ye sall carry a letter to my love, Bring an answer back to me.'

_Hardyknute_, _Sir Patrick Spence_, and _Gil Morrice_, all open, it will be recollected, with the sending away of a message. Here is a fourth instance, very like one artist's work, truly.

The lover describes his mistress in terms recalling _Bradislee_:

'The red that is on my true love's cheek Is like blood-draps on the snaw; The white that is on her breast bare, Like the down o' the white sea-maw.'

The bird arrives at the lady's abode:

And first he sang a low, low note, And syne he sang a clear; And aye the owerword o' the sang Was, 'Your love can no win here.'

_Gil Morrice_ has:

Aye the owerword o' his sang Was, 'My mother tarries lang.'

The lady feigns death, after the device of Juliet:

Then up and rose her seven brethren, And hewed to her a bier; They hewed frae the solid aik, Laid it ower wi' silver clear.

Then up and gat her seven sisters, And sewed to her a kell; And every steek that they put in Sewed to a silver bell.

Here we have the same style of luxurious description of which we have already seen so many examples--so different from the usually bald style of the real homely ballads of the people. It is, further, very remarkable that in _Clerk Saunders_ it is seven brothers of the heroine who come in and detect her lover; and in the _Douglas Tragedy_, when the pair are eloping, Lord William spies his mistress's

... seven brethren bold Come riding o'er the lee.

Both of these ballads, indeed, shew a structure and a strain of description and sentiment justifying the strongest suspicions of their alleged antiquity, and pointing to the same source as the other pieces already noticed.

The ballad of _Fause Foodrage_, which Sir Walter Scott printed for the first time, describes a successful conspiracy by Foodrage and others against King Honour and his queen. The king being murdered, the queen is told, that if she brings forth a son, it will be put to death likewise; so she escapes, and, bringing a male child into the world, induces the lady of Wise William to take charge of it as her own, while she herself takes charge of the lady's daughter. The unfortunate queen then arranges a future conduct for both parties, in language violently figurative:

'And ye maun learn my gay gos-hawk, Right weel to breast a steed; And I sall learn your turtle-dow As weel to write and read.

'And ye maun learn my gay gos-hawk, To wield both bow and brand; And I sall learn your turtle-dow To lay gowd wi' her hand.

'At kirk and market, when we meet, We'll dare make nae avowe, But--Dame, how does my gay gos-hawk?

Madam, how does my dow?'

When the royal youth grows up, Wise William reveals to him his history, and how his mother is still in confinement in Foodrage's hands. 'The boy stared wild like a gray gos-hawk' at hearing the strange intelligence, but soon resolves on a course of action:

He has set his bent bow to his breast, And leapt the castle-wa', And soon he has seized on Fause Foodrage, Wha loud for help 'gan ca'.

The slaying of Foodrage and marriage of the turtle-dow wind up the ballad. Now, is not the adoption of the term, 'gay gos-hawk' in this ballad, calculated to excite a very strong suspicion as to a community of authors.h.i.+p with the other, in which a gay gos-hawk figures so prominently? But this is not all. 'The boy stared wild like a gray gos-hawk,' is nearly identical with a line of _Hardyknute_:

Norse e'en like gray gos-hawk stared wild.

Scott was roused by this parallelism into suspicion of the authenticity of the ballad, and only tranquillised by finding a lady of rank who remembered hearing in her infancy the verses which have here been quoted. He felt compelled, he tells us, 'to believe that the author of _Hardyknute_ copied from the old ballad, if the coincidence be not altogether accidental.' Finally, the young prince's procedure in storming the castle, is precisely that of Gil Morrice in gaining access to that of Lord Barnard:

And when he cam to Barnard's yett, He would neither chap nor ca', But set his bent bow to his breast, And lightly lap the wa'.

It may fairly be said that, in ordinary literature, coincidences like this are never 'accidental.' It may be observed, much of the narration in _Fause Foodrage_ is in a stiff and somewhat hard style, recalling _Hardyknute_. It was probably one of the earlier compositions of its author.

The _La.s.s o' Lochryan_ describes the hapless voyage of a maiden mother in search of her love Gregory. In the particulars of sea-faring and the description of the vessel, _Sir Patrick Spence_ is strongly recalled.

She has garred build a bonny s.h.i.+p; It's a' covered o'er wi' pearl; And at every needle-tack was in't There hung a siller bell.

Let the reader revert to the description of the bier prepared for the seeming dead lady in the _Gay Gos-hawk_.

She had na sailed a league but twa, Or scantly had she three, Till she met wi' a rude rover, Was sailing on the sea.

The reader will remark in _Sir Patrick_:

They had na sailed a league, a league, A league but barely three, &c.

The rover asks:

'Now, whether are ye the queen hersel, Or ane o' her Maries three, Or are ye the La.s.s o' Lochryan, Seeking love Gregory?'[20]

[20] The above three verses are in the version printed in Lawrie and Symington's collection, 1791.

The queen's Maries are also introduced in _Mary Hamilton_, who, indeed, is represented as one of them:

Yestreen the queen she had four Maries; The night, she has but three; There was Mary Seton and Mary Beaton, And Mary Carmichael and me.

On arriving at love Gregory's castle, beside the sea, the lady calls:

'Oh, open the door, love Gregory; Oh, open and let me in; For the wind blaws through my yellow hair, And the rain draps o'er my chin.'

He being in a dead sleep, his mother answers for him, and turns from the door the forlorn applicant, who then exclaims:

'Tak down, tak down the mast o' gowd; Set up a mast o' tree; It disna become a forsaken lady To sail sae royallie.

'Tak down, tak down the sails o' silk; Set up the sails o' skin; Ill sets the outside to be gay, When there's sic grief within.'

Gregory then awakes:

O quickly, quickly raise he up, And fast ran to the strand, And there he saw her, fair Annie, Was sailing frae the land.

The wind blew loud, the sea grew rough, And dashed the boat on sh.o.r.e; Fair Annie floated on the faem, But the babie raise no more.

And first he kissed her cherry cheek, And syne he kissed her chin; And syne he kissed her rosy lips-- There was nae breath within.